On Wednesday we moved from the face dock in Hampton, went out to Sunset Yachting to get diesel, and moved into a slip with floating piers so we didn’t have to worry about the tide. Tides are a new thing for us, as are strange noises in the bottom of the boat at night. It turns out there are grass shrimp here that look for food on the bottom of boats and they make a clicking sound on the hull. Shortly after we settled in, two boats full of boy scouts came in. There is a CHASE – Chesapeake High Adventure Sailing Experience that takes scouts out for a week of sailing. Noah put on his cub scout shirt and made friends. He is looking forward to seeing them again as they are also heading to Yorktown. Noah has taken to counting jellyfish, their were 240 between the bathhouse and our boat in Hampton.
This morning, the boy scouts were still sleeping on the decks of their boats when we departed. Noah has a new appreciation for his private “stateroom.” We used a new program, Coastal Explorer, today that let us see the commercial ships around us. It was quite helpful as there are lots in this area. It plots their position, name and course on the computer chart and lets you know their speed and what the CPA (closest point of approach) will be. Anyway, we had 15 knots of wind and put up the main, the staysail and the new jib. We were passed by Old Point Comfort lighthouse and into Chesapeake Bay proper for the first time. The three sails moved us along at 7.5 kts and it felt good to be out sailing. Upon reaching the York river, we had to go into the wind, so we began furling the sails. Unfortunately, the jib didn’t want to furl (the sails roll up like window shades when you pull on a line). The furling line was wrapped inside the drum with some over rides. Beth worked for over two hours trying to free the line, but to no avail. It was fairly stressful, as the wind was 15-20 and we had to keep tacking back and forth across the channel. While this was going on, an oil tanker, two barges, two naval warships and a bunch of fishing boats were also using the channel. After both trying to free the line, we finally gave up and resorted to plan b, dropping the sail onto the deck. It worked smoothly and the autopilot maintained course while Beth and I doused the sail. After that, we saw the boy scouts sailing by a warship, and that is the photo of the day. We tied up for tonight and tomorrow night at the York River Yacht Harbor. Plugged in the air conditioning right away since it is very humid and hot once you are out of the wind. It shut off right away since the water cooling wasn’t working. The culprit turned out to be a jellyfish. We got him(?) out of the strainer without getting stung and the boat cooled off quickly. There is a nice pool here, so we swam for a couple of hours between loads of laundry. While folding laundry, we were treated to an half-hour of bagpipe music by a gentleman practicing on the deck of the York River Yacht Club. This is a very nice spot where we are one of the smallest boats. Most have blue hulls and owners that dress in blazers for dinner, but they let us stay here anyway. They are farming oysters under their floating docks, so will have to investigate that more tomorrow.
A family friend, Ted Leonard, has been receiving packages of parts for us, and he dropped them by tonight and we had a nice visit. Rumor has it that I was the ring-bearer in his wedding. Looking forward to visiting more tomorrow.